Rolleiflex 3.5F Planar vs. SL66

I was recently viewing some slides I shot with my Rolleiflex 3.5F with Planar,

and some I have shot with a Rolleiflex SL66E and various (40,50,80,150,250mm)

lenses. I must say that the 3.5F Planar seems to be the sharpest of them all.

And the bouquet of is much nicer than the bouquet of the SL66E lenses with

their 5 blade aperture.

Does anyone here care to share his/hers opinions on this?

My opinion is the same as yours.

Hmmm... comforting words to read. I just walked away from an SL66SE kit with all those lenses.

 

...Vick

People like TLR Rollies better than Hasselblads too image wise. Problem is the camera is limiting.

I'm not surprised. The six element Planar on my 3,5F is the sharpest lens I have. Sharper than the 2,8/80 Planar on my 2,8F. Planars on SLR:s are retrofocus designs, but the TLR:s have the "real thing". ;-)

Rollie TLR's are great!

 

I'd like to see someone engineer a digital back for them. Take off the film cover & pop in a

digital.

That 3.5 Planar has uncanny sharpness or at least some do. I find it especially good at

infinite. Much better at getting those tiny little trees way off in the distance sharp.

 

But I prefer the hft coated lenses. I prefer the clarity.

dp

I have had both, still have the 3.5 twin which I much prefer.

These discussions are kind of academic IMO. The two cameras are really for different uses. The best 80/3.5 Planar TLR is useless if its the wrong lens/camera for the job at hand.

F series Rollei TLRs have excellent lenses, your observation is not surprising.

Planars on Blads and others are NOT retrofocus. They don't have to be, the mirror isn't that big. That's also why the 60 is a Distagon and not a Planar.

It is a myth that non-retrofocus lens are better than retrofocus lens in principle. A lot of new high performance lens (including large format, where it would not be necessary at first glance)) are somewhat retrofocus.

80mm Planars on the Rollei and Hassie SLRs are slightly retrofocus. The 100mm Planar for Hassie is not. Distagons, by definition, are retrofocus. The Zeiss non-retrofocus wide angle design is the Biogon. That mirror is pretty big.

The standard 80/2.8 Planar for the Hasselblad is retrofocus. The Rollei TLR 80/2.8 Planar is not. Both Planar designs, one retro and one not... I don't think that the lens name has much to do with it being a retrofocus design or not.

 

Also, wide LF lenses are retrofocus to increase the back focus so when you focus in infinity (or far away), you don't get scrunched up bellows or the need to use a recessed lens board. Just like how there are some long lenses that are tele designs to reduce back focus so you can use less bellows/not use an extension board. I think there is some modern Leica M lens that has a retro design... Not sure though, but the majority of Leica M lenses are non-retrofocus, and they are among the best (if not THE best) photographical lenses around.

 

Oh, and its "Boke(h)", not "Boquet" for the term describing out of focus rendition. It comes from Japanese, and not from some other language that uses the word "boquet" to describe a mix of elements, as I read in some old thread here recently.

Yes, "bokeh" is right, not "bouquet".

Dan and Chuk have it right. The 80mm for the Hassie is slightly retrofocus. Here is a <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=003Sho">LINK</a> to another thread from this forum in which this is confirmed. Look at the post by Kornelius Fleischer. Dr. Fleischer is the head of lens applications at Zeiss.

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I like "bouquet!" It is also said of fine wines. And we do talk about lenses here as if they were fine wines! And rightly so . . . Each lens--and each wine--has its own unique bouquet. I like it!

Yes, boquet could be used to describe the lens characteristics as a whole, but boke is a very specific in that it is used to describe the out of focus areas only. Maybe we should make boquet a more popular word and spread its use!